Reconciliation is a common financial process by which debit and credit transactions are matched for a plurality of accounts. Typically, any unmatched or open transactions are researched and cleared by marking them for write off and the like in corporate reconciliation processes.
In large corporate organization having many lines of business, it is common for various departments to have adopted different computer accounting systems. Such accounting systems may differ in the computer operating system (OS) that is used and/or in the software applications that are employed.
While this does not pose a hardship for an individual department in reconciling its transactions internally, it frequently hampers reconciliations between departments having different accounting systems, and likewise for a corporate entity as a whole. One reason for this is because input financial data must be converted between the different data formats. Frequently, such conversions lead to further human or computer errors, which tend to increase un-reconciled transaction amounts. Also, a larger number of databases need to be used in corporations with disparate accounting systems, thus adding to the complexity of the task as well as the time it takes to complete reconciliations.
Another challenge faced with the multiple sources and formats of data is the difficulty in reconciling this data. Defining business rules/logic for allowing the system to automatch the data also becomes difficult. This leads to manual matching/reconciliation of data, which, in turn, causes further human errors and unmatched/unreconciled data. The burden of research and clearance increases with an increase in the volume of unreconciled data.
Replacing every accounting system in every department with a system of the same format would solve these recurring problems. However, particularly with respect to large corporations, this solution would entail extreme financial burdens. In addition, it may not be possible to find one available software solution that can be implemented within every department.
Accordingly, there is a need for a global reconciliation tool that addresses certain problems in existing technologies.